There are many conditions where a tie, such as a wire, suture, cable, or like strand capable of being secured onto itself by twisting, is required to hold items together. One such condition is in the medical field where a patient's sternum has been separated for heart surgery and it is then necessary to pull the separated parts of the sternum together and to then twist sutures onto the sternum to hold the sternum together for natural healing by knitting. The present invention is particularly useful in the medical field under conditions where any bone is separated, and it will be basically described in that context. Of course, it will also be disclosed for and cover applications in any field where a tie is to twisted onto itself for securement.
Thus, the present invention provides and instrument, and method of making same, wherein a tie or suture can be readily and accurately installed on items or bone and then tensioned to draw the items or broken bones together and to ultimately twist the tie or suture onto itself in a helical pattern to tie the items or bones together. The twisting is accomplished by progressively twisting along the tie in even knots and without the incidence of breaking the tie during twisting.
With this invention, the items or bones are drawn together and the tie or suture is then twisted onto itself. Thus, there is no slack or Looseness in the tie or suture relative to the items or bone, and there is an even and balanced pull on the tie, and that is all accomplished in an efficient and rapid manner with optimum accuracy though only a minimum of user skill.
The tie is strung and connected to the exterior of the instrument, and it is not strung through the interior of an instrument. Thus, the stringing and attaching of the wire are easily and accurately accomplished relative to the instrument. Also, the wire tie or suture is strung in a position to effect optimum pulling force on the items or bone for drawing the items together under easily applied tension in the tie.
In this invention, the tensioning of the tie is accomplished by a squeezing action through the hand of the user, and, with that same squeezing grip on the instrument, the user can also twist the tie onto itself in a helical pattern. With only one gripping action by the user, the tie tensioning and initial twisting are accomplished. So there is the initial tensioning in the tie to draw the items or bone together, and there is then the twisting of the tie while maintaining that tension, and then a rotation action is applied to form the helical twisting of the tie to secure the tie on the items or bone.
Of further importance in this invention, is the method of making the instrument. In this regard, the various parts of the instrument are easily and reliably manufactured and they are also easily and reliably assembled. These and like desirable accomplishments are important because they permit the instrument to be made with a minimum of expense for material and instrument parts and minimum skill both in manufacturing and in assembling the instrument. In fact, this instrument can be considered to be a disposable instrument with a one-time usage, and that is particularly important in the medical field where sterility and expense are usually significant where a long lifetime instrument is made. While the instrument is sufficiently sturdy to apply the required pull and twist actions, the instrument can be made of plastic material.